spectacle | Street theatre | Open air spectacle
Theater Anu
- Genre: spectacle | Street theatre | Open air spectacle
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News
5.8.2020 adapted to Corona: The Great Journey by Theater Anu will be performed at Tempelhofer Feld
It feels wonderful! Theater Anu have managed to redesign the performance The Great Journey that it can be performed under the recent restrictions. Slightly fewer spectators, seats, guided tour in small groups - but the visitors still wander through a labyrinth of thousands of candles and are enchanted by the wonderful, dreamlike stories.
From 5 - 8 August and from 12 - 15 August on the Tempelhofer Feld in Berlin.
1.5.2020 SpielBAR CORONA
Many of you had to cancel the summer shows already. We want to encourage you to think theater in totally new ways with us this year.
ANU tries to work with the limitations not against them, because we are sure that there are conceptions that will work even in the current situation!
Not only will it be an economically disaster for all artists if this summer is completely free of performances, but people will have an enormous need of cultural events after weeks of isolation. Many of them will not be able or willing to go on holidays this summer and even places like open-air swimming pools will probable stay closed. This upcoming gap could be our chance to bring culture to new audiences. Let's open SpielBAR Corona
10.4.2019 Die Great Journey : ready to go to Suwon Festival / Korea
A very busy season is going to start for Theater Anu : whereas preparing for touring and rehearsing the special projects, Theater is getting ready to head over to Suwon, Korea to present there The Great Journey for the first time in Asia.
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The Great Journey
Encounters in a labyrinth of lights
3000 candles, 300 suitcases, eight characters acting the stories of their hopes and disappointments in simultaneous cycles throughout the performance. The visitors themselves become travellers – become players – searching for the way to the centre. Pick out a suitcase and seek out the path.
A fool has set up his fairground booth. He catches images out of the air, tells crazy stories, and plays pranks on his audience. Anyone who steps through the door of his booth enters a whole new world: a maze created by thousands of lights. Visitors become travellers: suitcases, doubling as peepshows, are waiting to be picked up and carried along. Figures who are also searching for their way live in the labyrinth: the prince who doesn’t want to be king; the bird woman who never gives up her dream of flying; the lamplight dreamer, who paints magical illuminated images from a foreign land. Eight mysterious figures tell of their dreams, of failing to get any further, and of their tiny islands of happiness: poetic games on the way to the centre.
The labyrinth is open for three hours. The scenes are played continuously in a loop throughout this time.
The Great Journey can be performed in a wide variety of locations: on large squares; in parks (several types of labyrinths can be constructed); in tunnels; also indoors in large halls and other special venues.
“It was an overwhelming sight.Theater Anu had used thousands of candles to transform the Schloss gardens into a labyrinth of warm light. The players who populated the labyrinth evolved powerful, archetypal images and created beings who both succeeded and failed, often holding us at one spot, preventing progress on the ‘great journey’: fallen angels, searching for the land of their dreams, bound to their own suitcase, or their life’s baggage, or to a Sisyphean task with no goal. Seen from the balcony of the Schloss it was a breathtaking view of symmetrically aligned life-lines, made entirely of light.” Badisches Tagblatt
For twenty years now Theater Anu have been exploring the potential of poetic theatre in public spaces. Under the direction of Bille Behr and Stefan Behr, and in collaboration with a variety of artists, the company have played in parks, squares and many non-theatrical locations such as tunnels, churches and industrial halls. Their installations and performances create unique spaces of experience and memory which invite visitors to immerse themselves in imaginary worlds, to be enchanted and transformed.
Every year, 40,000 visitors witness Theater Anu’s sensuous, unassuming productions in squares and parks and other open spaces. The company creates touring productions and also commissioned work for special events.
Please find here a brochure detailing all the current touring shows of Theater Anu.
idea, concept
Bille Behr, Stefan Behr
in collaboration with Laterna Magica, Martin Thoms
direction
Bille Behr, Stefan Behr
text
Stefan Behr
set design
Martin Thoms
music + composition
Nikolaus Herdieckerhoff/cellolitis
audio production
Bille Behr + Nikolaus Herdieckerhoff
performer
Martin Thoms
Jacek Klinke
Markus Moiser
Bille Behr
Bärbel Aschenberg
Johanna Malchow
Karen Rémy
Tim Engemann
place
free place with min 2000 m²
set up: ca 1,5 days
darkness
duration
3 hours. Within this period, the visitors can move and stay as they wish
language
German + English version available
visitors
up to 2.500 per day
all ages (children with parental guidance only)
productionn
Theater Anu
creation
2007
